The Olympics: yikes. So China, a country governed by a repressive and corrupt autocracy that buys oil from Darfur and gets away with all of it because its citizens are used to a whole lot worse and so, in fact, are most citizens of most countries...well China thought it would be a neat idea to do this epic six-continent Olympic torch relay in the lead-up to the Beijing summer Olympics. (Okay, it wasn't their idea, but it was the longest ever torch relay, like the Great Wall or something.) The French apparently had other ideas! The torch had to be re-routed three times before they gave up on the whole Paris leg of the trip. Now Hillary Clinton is calling for George W. Bush to boycott the ceremonies. (Seriously, Hillary Clinton who visited China to celebrate women and how they like to abort them or somesuch back when you were First Lady?) (To be fair, she chastised them over that and got censored.) This is a pic of French tennis player Arnaud di Pasquale looking dismayed. (And unrelatedly: hot.) In the words of a Dutch pro-Tibet protester: "You almost have to feel sorry for the Chinese." [Politico]